For the Love of Peanuts

For some time we have had Steller's Jays fly across our back yard.  They are resident in the neighbourhood and we often see them at a large hedge on 44th Avenue, just the other side of Ladner Elementary School.  Occasionally they would stop at our feeder and help themselves to a few sunflower seeds, but mostly they just ignored it.  Last year I put a few peanuts out on the deck rail and immediately got the jays' attention.  Ever since we have allowed the jays to entertain us with their enthusiasm for peanuts.

They will watch and wait for me to put the peanuts out.  I think they even know our car; often when I drive home along 44th Avenue, park the car in our garage, and come upstairs to the kitchen I find a jay on the bird feeder bar, expectantly waiting.  If not present when I put peanuts out they arrive within seconds after I leave the deck.  If they are already there, they'll come as close as a metre away from me, but never take a nut out of hand.

Lately. I have clipped the peanuts onto strings hanging from overhead.  This puzzled them at first and only one would attempt to pluck any off the strings.  This one soon got the knack of jumping and flying at the selected peanut with head turned just so to successfully pull it off the string.  For about a week it appeared that only one bird could do this as the rest contented themselves with the loose nuts on the deck rail, then others started catching on after observing.  Now, most of the jays do it, some more expertly than others.  The birds who are more adept at plucking peanuts off the strings may even ignore the easy pickings lying on the deck rail in preference for the challenges on the strings.  Some even choose peanuts higher up the strings over the easy to reach ones at the ends.  Now more jays than ever come to participate in our peanut challenge.

Encounters with Three People

The first person was my own Father.  Dad was an active Christian all his life who raised me in our local United Church of Canada and sang in the choir of every congregation to which he belonged.  After I had grown and left the family home his involvement attained the chairmanship of our church’s Board of Session while Mum chaired the Board of Stewards.  Anyhow when I was a very small boy, I used to hear Dad comment on selfish behaviour by others, “Why don't they hear Jesus’ words, ‘Deny thyself.’?”

Later, when I learned the Easter story in Sunday School, I took note of the part following Jesus’ arrest when Peter denied Jesus.  In my private pondering of what I had learned, I put two and two together, this lesson together with Dad’s earlier comment and determined that I should endeavour to avoid denying Jesus, but rather deny my own self.  Whether successfully or not so successfully, I do try to reduce and limit the realm of my own self-interest.

Throughout my life since then, I have experienced times when I have had a real sense of God close with me and other times when God seemed distant or even non-existent.  What seems really strange is that it is precisely on those few times when I most successfully deny myself that God seems most remote.

The second person was an older medical doctor who befriended me as a young adult, a stalwart in his community and the United Church I attended at the time.  When I knew him, he was of an age to have active memories of the period of active temperance organizations here in Canada and alcohol prohibition in the United States.

On one occasion, as we visited, he got into considering the familiar saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  The commonly accepted understanding has it that this saying refers to good intentions not carried out. My doctor friend stopped and suggested that this means more.  Rather, he suggested that it could be in the carrying out of “good” intentions, free from any self-interest, that the road to some form of hell gets paved.

He gave the example of the temperance movement and alcohol prohibition.  He recalled the active movers and shakers within the temperance movement as involved Christians who, out of love for neighbour and strong “good” intentions, sought to extend blessings they enjoyed and save their neighbours from the ravages of alcoholism.  Being non-drinkers, they had nothing to gain for themselves from prohibition and approached the issue with true Christian nothing-in-it-for-themselves unselfishness.  They succeeded in their “good” intentions and, for a time, brought complete alcohol prohibition to the United States and wrought the hell of a sharp rise in organized criminality and gangsterism within that country from which it has never fully recovered.

Similarly and until quite recently, the loving and widely carried out "good" intentions of our settler forbearers to extend the benefits their Christian European culture to the "more primitive" aboriginal residents of North America opened the way to those who would exploit and, thus, paved the road to the hell of First Nations residential schools, from which many First Nations communities continue to suffer to this day.

Intelligent and well educated as he was, my doctor friend could not resolve this contradiction.

The third person, an active non-believer to whom "Altruism is an utterly evil concept," would “Never trust any person for whom that person’s own self-interest in a matter was not readily obvious," and, despising self-sacrifice, would "be offended if you sacrificed what is in your own rational self-interest in order to do something for me, but be welcoming of anything you do with me out of your own self-interest.”

She contended, “Your St. Paul got it all wrong when he wrote, ‘Love is never selfish.’ In fact, love is always and entirely the selfish inclusion of the interests of the one loved within the self-interest of the one loving. Rational self-interest is good, not the evil you Christians project it as being.”  She argued, “You Christians regard love as existing when the well-being of the one loved is viewed as more important than the wellbeing of the one giving love, the thinking of the slave and the altruistic victimized,” and went on to claim, “Love exists when the well-being of the one loved is recognized as necessary to the well-being of the one giving love, the rational and wholly selfish thinking of a truly free person within a community.”

The odd fact is, this non-believer is actually among the kindest and most generous people with whom I have crossed paths.  When questioned about her kindness and generosity, she always came back with a highly rational explanation as to how her kindness and generous action fit entirely within the substantially large realm of her own self-interest.

I must admit that I have never felt confident in answering this challenge.

Christmas Letter '13

Nadolig Llawen!               Merry Christmas!                      Buon Natale!

Christmas 2013.

From our home to yours, Family and Friends,

What a pleasure to share a little bit of our lives over the past year at this very special time of year.  I am slow getting this out, more of a New Year greeting than a Christmas greeting.  We hope you are enjoying a full and restful Christmas/New Year season.  2013 has been very much a typical year for us, a happy year with very ordinary challenges.

Tina has settled into her retirement but still takes the occasional casual shift, nursing at VGH.  Ted's health continues as stable, with only occasional colds.  He continues to alternate 3 days of swimming (2000 m. in roughly 40 min.) with 3 days of cycling (nearly 14 km. in roughly 40 min.), with this exercise and prescribed medication, Ted remains well.

Angela completed her studies at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in May.  Her graduation show presented more of her remarkable ceramic objects.  She joined the Delta Potters Association and, since graduation, spends much of her time on a potting wheel, at a working table, or with a kiln at either the guild studio in Tsawwassen or her own studio here at home.  Angela still loves to carve her ceramic pieces and the results show ever growing sophistication with freed imagination.  She presents some her works on her ceramics web site, http://angelahopkinsceramics.com.  She and her ceramics classmates from ECUAD remain together as the Dusty Babes Collective (http://www.dustybabes.com/artists.html), taking part in as many art and craft shows as they can enter, including the Yellow Crane Festival at ECUAD last summer and the big Got Craft? Christmas market early in December.  She had the privilege to get selected as the “featured artist” for the month of September at the British Columbia Gallery of Ceramics on Granville Island and had two mugs accepted at the Autumn Cup Show at prestigious Medalta Potteries in Medicine Hat, Alberta.  Angela also participated in the Delta Potters Association Autumn show in October.  Before Christmas, Angela also completed a small two piece commission from Australia.  Now, out of school, Angela and the Dusty Babes strive to find their place among British Columbia ceramic artists.

In May, David completed his mathematical studies at Langara College, earning an Associate of Science degree.  He remains on very much a part time studies program as he moved on to continue at Simon Fraser University in September. David excels in his Mathematics courses, especially with pure Mathematics. Course work of a more pragmatic nature continues to give him more of a struggle.

David continues very active with his music, still studying viola, clarinet, and piano.  He has now moved on from the Delta Youth Orchestra to play with the adult Richmond Orchestra but remains welcome to return as a guest alumnus with the youth orchestra, as he did this Autumn for Classical Cabaret and the opportunity to play Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, “The Pastorale.”  This symphony holds a very special place in our family’s memories of David’s growing up.  When David was two and a half, Ted gave Tina a CD of the Sixth Symphony that immediately caught David’s fancy.  Every day, at least once a day for two months, our little David would ask to have “Dakoven” played and would stand, enthralled in front of the stereo through the entire symphony.  This was our first indication that music would hold a special place in David’s life.

For the 2013/14 orchestral year, Ted now serves as immediate Past President of the Delta Symphony Society, the sponsor of the Richmond Delta Youth Orchestra (the Society changed the orchestra’s name last spring in recognition of the participation we draw from Richmond).

All of us felt loss when Ted’s half-brother Bud (Edward Joseph Hopkins) died in June at eighty years of age after a long bout of illness that had put him in hospital in January.  We were prepared, yet found this unexpected as he had shown good recovery for weeks prior.  Bud went through a very good day’s physiotherapy, then quietly died in his sleep the following night.  At his specific request we held no memorial service, but, in September, Norman, John, and Ted, along with David and Angela met Bud’s request and took his ashes and those he had kept of his much loved horse, Swedan, up into the Cascade Mountains along Whipsaw Creek off the Hope-Princeton Highway, Bud’s favourite wild place get-away, and scattered them.  We miss him but feel confident he has found a better place.

Our getaway this year was again our usual escape to Cusheon Lake resort on Salt Spring Island, a trip early in the summer for Canada Day, another at the end of summer, and a third, quick trip for the Salt Spring Apple Festival at the end of September.  I had the privilege to find and reconnect with an old schoolmate, John Sutherland, now living on Salt Spring.  We always make this a relaxing time, paddling on the lake or swimming, fossicking at Beddis Beach or Beaver Point, and visiting in Ganges.

Catinka remains very much queen of our house, while Angela’s ducks hold authority over our back yard.  Jemima and Rebbecah have turned out as prolific egg layers, keeping our home well supplied all year long.  Tango remains convinced that he should not let any of us exit the back yard from January to August.

Ted continues to seek players to experiment with his invented team sports of Two Ball and Delta.  His first approach was to schools as their Physical Education and intramural sport programs likely offer the best chance of drawing sufficient groups of players together.  This proved very disappointing as no schools have taken up either game yet.  Ted also gives the games a web presence at http://twoballanddelta.org and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TwoBallAndDelta.  These have caught the attention of well over three thousand people, world-wide, but he still awaits word of any of them actually playing either game.  You are most welcome to have a look and draw the games to the attention of sport minded people you may know.

And now we look forward to 2014.  This will be a remarkable year simply because Ted will mark a half century since his graduation from Southern Okanagan Secondary School.  Wow, amazing!  Just for that occasion he is including more of his former classmates while sending these greetings.

Recent weeks, of course, have filled us with Christmas preparations and Christmas itself.  We hope yours have gone well and we hope you had a Merry and Blessed Christmas and wish you all happiness in the New Year.

With our love,

Ted, Tina, David, and Angela.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!                  Happy New Year!              Felice Nuovo Anno!

WestJet Christmas Miracle

My Daughter at Medalta

Juried acceptance and showing at the first International Medalta Cup Show.

On God's Creativity

I recently encountered a link (http://imgur.com/a/pPJmj#0) to a posting of a grade four Science quiz that I thought must surely be a parody.  It turns out to be real, the mother of the child who brought it home sent Snopes.com a message to verify the child as hers and that she will transfer her child to a different school next school year.

“Oh Lord my God When I, in awesome wonder, Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made: I see the stars; I hear the rolling thunder; Thy power throughout The universe displayed.  Then sings my soul, My Saviour, God, to Thee, ‘How great thou art.’”

Every autumn, if I get out to a dark enough night sky, I look out at M 31, the Andromeda Galaxy and the most distant object visible to the naked eye.  I always feel awe at knowing that that the light falling into my eyes from M 31 has taken a little over two million years to reach me.  Yet this is our closest neighbouring spiral galaxy, with thousands of millions of others extending thousands of millions of light years in every direction.  I am reminded that God’s scale is not human scale, God’s scale extends across thousands of millions of cubic light years of space and over thousands of millions of years through time.

When I was a teen, in personal conversation with the Reverend George Searcy, our minister at Oliver United Church, he pointed out that the Bible is not, and does not purport to be, a scientific text.  This freed me to recognize that the knowledge our God given intellect discovers through Science does not threaten faith in God.  Rather it enhances my wonder at God’s creative power.  God’s creative dynamic can most surely encompass evolution by natural selection, just as it involves relativity and quantum mechanics, along with much else still totally unknown to us.

I object to that quiz purporting to be Science, yet containing the utter nonsense of denying God’s own scale with the absurd suggestions that dinosaurs and humans coexisted and that our Earth cannot be a few thousands of millions of years old.